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Document 52013DC0485
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Annual report to the European Parliament and the Council on the activities of the EURODAC Central Unit in 2012
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Annual report to the European Parliament and the Council on the activities of the EURODAC Central Unit in 2012
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Annual report to the European Parliament and the Council on the activities of the EURODAC Central Unit in 2012
/* COM/2013/0485 final */
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Annual report to the European Parliament and the Council on the activities of the EURODAC Central Unit in 2012 /* COM/2013/0485 final */
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Annual report to the European Parliament
and the Council on the activities of the EURODAC Central Unit in 2012 1. Introduction 1.1. Scope Council Regulation EC/2725/2000 of 11 December
2000, concerning the establishment of 'EURODAC' for the comparison of
fingerprints for the effective application of the Dublin Convention
(hereinafter referred to as 'EURODAC Regulation')[1], stipulates that the Commission
shall submit to the European Parliament and the Council an annual report on the
activities of the Central Unit[2].
The present tenth annual report includes information on the management and the
performance of the system in 2012. It assesses the output and the
cost-effectiveness of EURODAC, as well as the quality of its Central Unit’s
service. This is the last Annual Report that will be presented by the
Commission – future Annual Reports will be presented by the eu-LISA (IT
Agency). 1.2. Legal and policy
developments The Commission tabled a new proposal permitting
law enforcement access to EURODAC, presented on 30 May 2012.[3] The Commission first adopted a
Recast of the EURODAC Regulation in 2008[4]
that did not permit for law enforcement. Amended proposals were adopted in 2009[5] to allow for law enforcement
(that lapsed with the entry into force of the Treaty on the Functioning of the
European Union (TFEU)); and in 2010[6] again
without law enforcement. It became clear that law enforcement access would be
an essential element of the Common European Asylum System for the Council and
therefore the Commission adopted its 2012 proposal. THE EURODAC CENTRAL UNIT[7] 1.3. Management of the system Article 38 of the "IT Agency
Regulation"[8]
states that the new Agency would take over the management of EURODAC from 1
December 2012. However, in order to ensure the continuity of services as
foreseen in the Regulation, a transition period is necessary to complete the
transfer of the management of EURODAC from the existing sites in Brussels (Belgium) and Luxembourg to the new sites in Strasbourg (France) and Sankt Johann im Pongau (Austria). Consequently, management of EURODAC is expected to
move to the Agency over the course of 2013. The process of the handover in 2013 involves
training the staff of the Agency; establishing a link to allow the Agency to
manage the existing EURODAC IT infrastructure, based in Luxembourg, from
Strasbourg until a clone of the Central Unit is installed in Strasbourg and the
Backup Central Unit in Sankt Johann im Pongau; and then decommissioning the IT
infrastructure for the old Central Unit and Backup Central Unit in Luxembourg. 1.4. Quality of service and
cost-effectiveness The Commission has taken the utmost care to
deliver a high quality service to the Member States, who are the final
end-users of the EURODAC Central Unit. The EURODAC Central Unit in itself did
not register any downtime in 2012. Overall, in 2012 the EURODAC Central Unit
was available 99.98% of the time. The expenditure for maintaining and operating
the Central Unit in 2012 was €421,021.75 and marked a decrease in the
expenditure compared to previous years (€ 1,040,703.82 in 2011, €2,115,056.51
in 2010, €1,221,183.83 in 2009), which was, mainly due to the upgrade of the
EURODAC system (EURODAC PLUS). Some savings were made by the efficient use of
existing resources and infrastructures managed by the Commission, such as the
use of the s-TESTA network[9].
The Commission also provided (via the ISA Programme[10]) the communication and
security services for exchange of data between the Central and National Units.
These costs, initially intended to be borne by each Member State in accordance
with Article 21 (2) and (3) of the Regulation, were in the event covered by the
Commission making use of the common available infrastructures. In terms of cost-effectiveness, the EURODAC
system enables Member States to compare both the data originally transmitted by
other Member States and the data they themselves originally transmitted in
order to establish whether an applicant has previously applied for asylum
(either in another State or in their own). Consequently, this permits important
savings for national budgets as Member States do not have to procure a national
automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) for the purpose of comparing
the fingerprints of asylum applicants within that State. As there were 411,236 successful transactions
to the Central Unit in 2012 and the expenditure for maintaining and operating
the Central Unit in 2012 was €421,021.75, this represents a cost of just €1.02
per transaction. 1.5. Data protection and data
security Article 18 paragraph 2 of the EURODAC
Regulation establishes a category of transactions which provides for the
possibility to conduct so-called 'special searches' ("Category 9") on
the request of the person whose data are stored in the central database in
order to safeguard his/her rights as the data subject to access his/her own
data. As pointed out in previous annual reports,
during the first years of operation of EURODAC, high volumes of 'special
searches' triggered concerns about possible misuse of the purpose of this
functionality by national administrations. In 2012, a total of 111 such searches were
conducted which represents a 50.9% decrease in comparison with 2011 (226) but
is still much higher than the 2010 figure of 66 or 2009 figure of 42. 51 of the
special searches in 2012 (46%) were from France. By contrast, in 2011 Spain had accounted for 79% of all special searches. In order to better
monitor this phenomenon, the Commission has included in its proposal for the
amendment of the EURODAC Regulation a requirement for Member States to send a
copy of the data subject's request for access to the competent national
supervisory authority. 2. Figures and findings The annex attached to the present annual report contains
tables with factual data produced by the Central Unit for the period 01.01.2012
– 31.12.2012. The EURODAC statistics are based on records of (1) fingerprints
from all individuals aged 14 years or over who have made applications for
asylum in the Member States ('category 1'), (2) fingerprints of persons who
were apprehended when crossing a Member State's external border irregularly
('category 2'), or (3) persons who were found illegally present on the
territory of a Member State (in case the competent authorities consider it
necessary to check a potential prior asylum application) ('category 3'). EURODAC data on asylum applications are not
comparable with those produced by Eurostat, which are based on monthly
statistical data provided by the Ministries of Justice and of the Interior.
There are a number of methodological reasons for the differences. First, the
Eurostat data include all asylum applicants, i.e. of any age. Second, their
data is collected with a distinction made between persons applying for asylum
during the reference month (which may also include repeat applications) and
persons applying for asylum for the first time. 2.1. Successful transactions A 'successful transaction' is a transaction
which has been correctly processed by the Central Unit, without rejection due
to a data validation issue, fingerprint errors or insufficient quality[11]. In 2012, the Central Unit received a total of
411,236 successful transactions, which represents a decrease of 0.26% compared
with 2011 (412,303). At first glance, this implies remarkable stability
compared with the differences in previous years. However, for some Member
States the numbers varied very considerably compared with the previous year.
The most notable case was Italy, where transactions fell from 96,685 in 2011 to
30,616 (-68.33%) in 2012. This figure is much more in line with previous years
and again highlights the effect of the Arab Spring in 2011 both on the numbers
of applicants for international protection and of irregular migrants
apprehended crossing a border. Other large decreases were notable in Latvia and Finland, as well as a notable reduction in Malta. On the other hand, the number of
transactions in Germany, Sweden, Bulgaria, Poland and Greece all increased somewhat. Greece saw the highest percentage increase from 12,469 in
2011 to 34,294 (175%). The big increase in Greece was in category 2 cases,
which had seen a significant fall the previous year. The trend in the number of transactions of data
of asylum seekers ('category 1') increased slightly in 2012 to 285,959,
up from 275,857 (3.66%) in 2011 and 215,463 in 2010. Notwithstanding the increase in Greece, there
was a general reduction regarding the number of persons who were apprehended in
connection with an irregular crossing of an external border ('category 2')
from 57,693 in 2011 down to 39,300 in 2012 (-31.88%). The biggest changes were,
as noted above, in Greece where the figure went from only 530 in 2011 to 21,951
in 2012 (4042%); Bulgaria from 509 in 2011 to 1,518 in 2012 (198%); Hungary
from 906 in 2011 to 260 in 2012 (-71.3%) and Italy from 50,555 in 2011 to
11,272 in 2012 (-77%). In 2011, 4 States (Czech Republic, Iceland,
Latvia, Sweden) did not send any 'category 2' transactions and a further 9
Member States sent fewer than 10 transactions (Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark,
Estonia, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania). As explained in
the 2009 report, the issue of divergence between the number of category 2 data
sent to EURODAC and other sources of statistics on the volume of irregular
border crossings in the Member States, highlighted by the EURODAC statistics,
is due to the definition in Article 8(1) of the EURODAC Regulation[12]. This issue will be clarified
in the framework of the on-going revision of the EURODAC Regulation. The total number of 'category 3' transactions
(data of persons apprehended when illegally present on the territory of a Member State) rose by 9.17% to 85,976, up from 78,753 in 2011 and 72,840 in 2010. Ireland was, as in previous years, the only Member State that did not send any 'category 3'
transactions. Even though 'category 3' searches are not
obligatory under the EURODAC Regulation, the Commission encourages Member
States to use this possibility before initiating return procedures under
Directive 2008/115/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16
December 2008 on common standards and procedures in Member States for returning
illegally present third-country nationals[13].
In the cases mentioned by the EURODAC Regulation[14], such a search could help
establish whether the third country national has applied for asylum in another Member State where he/she should be returned in application of the Dublin Regulation. The
largest number of 'category 3' transactions in 2012 was from Germany (24,621 or 29%), the Netherlands (11,172 or 13%) and the UK (10,279 or 12%). This is
consistent with the trends in 2010 and 2011. 2.2. 'Hits' 2.2.1. Multiple asylum applications
('Category 1 against category 1' hits) From a total of 285,959 asylum applications
recorded in EURODAC in 2012, 27.48% were recorded as 'multiple asylum
applications' (i.e. second or more), which means that in 78,591 cases, the
fingerprints of the same person had already been recorded as a 'category 1'
transaction in the same or another Member State. In 2011, the same figure was 61,819
(22.4%). However, the practice of some Member States to fingerprint upon take
back under the Dublin Regulation results in a distortion of the statistics on
multiple applications: taking and transmitting again the
fingerprints of the applicant upon arrival after a transfer under the Dublin
Regulation falsely indicates that the applicant applied again for asylum. The
Commission intends to solve this problem and, in its proposal for the amendment
of the EURODAC Regulation, has introduced the requirement that transfers should
not be registered as new asylum applications. Table 3 of the Annex shows for each Member
State the number of applications which corresponded to asylum applications
previously registered in either another ('foreign hits') or in the same Member
State ('local hits')[15].
In 2012, a total of 34.4% of all multiple
applications were local hits (down from 38.6% in 2011). In a number of Member
States (Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Spain, Greece, Ireland,
Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, the UK) this figure even exceeds 50%. In the
case of Belgium, local hits accounted for 10,037 of the 14,883 applications
(67.4%) and in Cyprus local hits accounted for 139 of the 148 applications
(93.9%). Indicating cases where a person who has
applied for asylum in a Member State makes a new application in the same Member
State, local hits in fact reflect the notion of subsequent application under
Article 32 of Council Directive 2005/85/EC of 1 December 2005 on minimum
standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee
status[16].
Foreign hits give an indication of the
secondary movements of asylum seekers in the EU. As in previous years, the
statistics confirm that the secondary movements witnessed do not necessarily
follow the 'logical' routes between neighbouring Member States. For instance,
France continued to receive the highest number of foreign hits from asylum
seekers who previously lodged an application in Poland (2,498). Germany and
Switzerland received a high number of asylum seekers who had previously lodged
an application in Sweden (2,567 and 1,050 respectively). The statistics show,
as in previous years, that foreign hits are not a one-way street from the
countries with an external land border or those bordering the Mediterranean to
the more northerly Member States. However, the statistics which indicate
secondary flows to the countries with an external land border or those
bordering the Mediterranean can to a large degree be attributed to the practice
of some Member States to fingerprint upon take back under the Dublin
Regulation. 2.2.2. "Category
1" against "category 2" hits These hits give an indication of routes taken
by persons who irregularly entered the territories of the Member States before
applying for asylum. In 2012 most hits occurred against data sent by Greece
(8,097), Italy; (7,171), Spain (1,385), Hungary (291) and Bulgaria (134) (see
Table 5). However, it is striking that with respect to Bulgaria most of these
hits were in fact local hits (84.9%). In 2011, 85.9% of the hits in Italy were
local hits, but in 2012 this had reduced to 46%. When comparing 2012 with 2011 an increase from
21% to 65.3% in the cases of persons apprehended in connection with an
irregular border-crossing, who later decide to lodge an asylum claim, can be
observed. This reflects an increase in absolute terms from 7,384 in 2011 to
17,319 in 2012. The majority of those who entered the EU
illegally via Italy and moved on, travelled to Switzerland (2,978), Germany
(1,359), or Sweden (881). Those who moved on after having entered illegally via
Greece mainly went to Germany (2,168), the Sweden (1,612) or Austria (1,216).
Of those entering via Spain, most moved on to either France (410), Germany
(284), Belgium (259) or Switzerland (242), while those who moved on after
having had their fingerprints taken in Hungary mainly moved on to the
neighbouring countries of Germany (61) or Austria (59). 2.2.3. 'Category
3 against category 1' hits These hits give indications as to where
irregular migrants first applied for asylum before travelling to another Member
State. It has to be borne in mind, however, that submitting 'category 3'
transactions is not mandatory and that not all Member States use the
possibility for this check systematically. The available data indicate that the flows of
persons apprehended when illegally present in another Member State from the one
in which they claimed asylum mostly end up in a few Member States, in
particular Germany (10,798 – up from 7,749 in 2011), The Netherlands (3,742),
Switzerland (3,682), Norway (2,382), France (2,165) and Austria (2,111) (see
Table 7). 2.3. Transaction
delay The EURODAC Regulation currently only provides
a very vague deadline for the transmission of fingerprints, which can cause
significant delays in practice. This is a crucial issue since a delay in
transmission may lead to results contrary to the responsibility principles laid
down in the Dublin Regulation. The issue of
exaggerated delays between taking fingerprints and sending them to the EURODAC
Central Unit was pointed out in previous annual reports and highlighted as a
problem of implementation in the Evaluation Report. As in 2011, the average delay of transmissions
i.e. the time elapsed between the taking and sending of fingerprints to the
Central Unit of EURODAC was relatively low in 2012. Most of the Member States and Associated Countries delay in transmitting fingerprints to the EURODAC
Central Unit is between 0 and 4 days. Exceptions to this average have been
noticed for the following Member States: Cyprus CAT-2 (15.00), Finland CAT-1
(10.16); Greece CAT-1 (5.00) and CAT-2 (10.43); UK CAT-2 (6.01); Germany CAT-1
(5.19), Spain AT-1 (4.41), . The Commission must reiterate that a delayed
transmission can result in the incorrect designation of a Member State by way of two different scenarios outlined in previous annual reports: 'wrong hits'[17] and 'missed hits'[18]. The total number of hits missed because of a delay
in the transmission of fingerprints doubled from 9 in 2011 to 18 in 2012, but
it should be noted that this is still a huge improvement on the 2010 figure of
362. Of the 18 missed hits in 2012, 12 were attributable to greece, 4 to Spain and 2 to Slovakia. There was a reduction in the number of wrong
hits from 89 in 2011 to 65 to 2012. Of these, 13 were from Finland and 10 from Belgium. The figure from Denmark, that had been 28 in 2011, was reduced to 7 in
2012. The Commission continues to urge the Member States to make all necessary
efforts to send their data promptly in accordance with Articles 4 and 8 of the
EURODAC Regulation. New transmission deadlines have been included in the
Commission's EURODAC Recast proposal with a view to resolving the issue of
delays in transmission. 2.4. Quality
of transactions In 2012, the average rate of rejected
transactions[19]
for all Member States and Associated Countries increased slightly to 6.63%, up
from 5.87%, in 2011. The following Member States had a rejection rate of 10% or
above: Estonia (22.4%), France (10.51%), Ireland (18.28%), Liechtenstein (13.7%), Malta (30.47%), Portugal (19.37%), and the UK (11.28%). In total, 9 Member
States had an above-average rejection rate. The rejection rate did not depend on technology
or weaknesses in the system. The causes of the rejection rate were mainly
related to the low quality of the fingerprints images submitted by Member
States, human error or the wrong configuration of the sending Member State’s equipment. On the other hand, in some cases these figures included several
attempts to send the same fingerprints after they were rejected by the system
for quality reasons. While acknowledging that some delay can be caused by the
temporary impossibility of taking fingerprints (damaged fingertips or other
health conditions hindering the prompt taking of fingerprints), the Commission
reiterates the problem of generally high rejection rates already underlined in
previous annual reports, and the Commission urges Member States to provide
specific training of national EURODAC operators, as well as to configure their
equipment correctly in order to reduce the rejection rate. 3. Conclusions The EURODAC Central Unit provided good results
throughout 2012 in terms of speed, output, security and cost-effectiveness. In 2012, the overall volume of transactions decreased by 0.26% to 411,236. CAT-1 transactions increased by 3.66%
to 285,959; CAT-2 transactions decreased by 31.88% to 39,300 (notwithstanding a
massive increase in Greece of 4042% to 21,951); CAT-3 transactions increased by
9.17% to 85,976. The average rate of rejected transactions for
all Member States increased to 6.63% in 2012, from 5.87%
in 2011. There was a further general improvement
concerning delays in the transmission of data to the EURODAC Central Unit,
although further improvements could still be made. ANNEX Table 1: EURODAC Central Unit,
Database content status 31/12/2012 || CAT 1 || CAT 2 || Blocked CAT 1 || || AT || 125.192 || 235 || 8.475 || || BE || 155.203 || 8 || 3.584 || || BG || 4.720 || 1.796 || 12 || || CH || 66.087 || 2 || 4.207 || || CY || 29.445 || 18 || 0 || || CZ || 14.455 || 0 || 371 || || DE || 297.966 || 61 || 19.533 || || DK || 17.629 || 0 || 0 || || EE || 204 || 1 || 31 || || ES || 34.672 || 7.363 || 545 || || FI || 24.455 || 29 || 758 || || FR || 358.241 || 738 || 0 || || GR || 114.615 || 21.329 || 0 || || HU || 16.998 || 954 || 302 || || IE || 26.880 || 5 || 1.671 || || IS || 381 || 2 || 0 || || IT || 177.342 || 61.776 || 2.502 || || LI || 50 || 0 || 0 || || LT || 1.864 || 5 || 47 || || LU || 8.134 || 2 || 17 || || LV || 620 || 0 || 0 || || MT || 5.924 || 6 || 1 || || NL || 87.154 || 25 || 5.012 || || NO || 80.713 || 17 || 8 || || PL || 44.056 || 23 || 441 || || PT || 1.373 || 1 || 37 || || RO || 7.317 || 46 || 410 || || SE || 201.864 || 0 || 5.821 || || SI || 3.599 || 57 || 31 || || SK || 15.878 || 43 || 1 || || UK || 277.619 || 478 || 32.747 || || || || || || || Total || 2.200.650 || 95.020 || 86.564 || || 2.295.670 Table 2: Successful transactions to
the EURODAC Central Unit, in 2012 Table
3: Hit repartition – Category 1 against Category 1, in 2012 Table
4: Hit repartition – Category 1 against Category 2, in 2012 Table 5: Category 1 hits against
Category 2 data sets || Total || Local || Foreign Hit (Total-Local) || % Local AT || 74 || 46 || 28 || 62,16 BE || 3 || 2 || 1 || 66,67 BG || 888 || 754 || 134 || 84,91 CH || 2 || 1 || 1 || 50,00 CY || 1 || 1 || 0 || 100,00 CZ || 0 || 0 || 0 || DE || 39 || 38 || 1 || 97,44 DK || 0 || 0 || 0 || EE || 1 || 1 || 0 || 100,00 ES || 1797 || 412 || 1385 || 22,93 FI || 30 || 28 || 2 || 93,33 FR || 335 || 212 || 123 || 63,28 GR || 9479 || 1382 || 8097 || 14,58 HU || 380 || 89 || 291 || 23,42 IE || 1 || 1 || 0 || 100,00 IS || 0 || 0 || 0 || IT || 13282 || 6111 || 7171 || 46,01 LI || 0 || 0 || 0 || LT || 7 || 2 || 5 || 28,57 LU || 2 || 2 || 0 || 100,00 LV || 0 || 0 || 0 || MT || 1 || 0 || 1 || 0,00 NL || 20 || 11 || 9 || 55,00 NO || 3 || 3 || 0 || 100,00 PL || 5 || 2 || 3 || 40,00 PT || 0 || 0 || 0 || RO || 18 || 3 || 15 || 16,67 SE || 1 || 0 || 1 || 0,00 SI || 29 || 6 || 23 || 20,69 SK || 53 || 36 || 17 || 67,92 UK || 50 || 39 || 11 || 78,00 Table 6: Hit repartition – Category 3
against Category 1, in 2012 Table 7: Category 3 against Category
1 (flows of persons apprehended when illegally present in another Member State
from the one in which they claimed asylum || Local || Total || Total-Local AT || 1544 || 3655 || 2111 BE || 2367 || 4343 || 1976 BG || 96 || 202 || 106 CH || 3685 || 7367 || 3682 CY || 30 || 30 || 0 CZ || 131 || 416 || 285 DE || 1709 || 12507 || 10798 DK || 163 || 1112 || 949 EE || 0 || 64 || 64 ES || 24 || 115 || 91 FI || 24 || 118 || 94 FR || 293 || 2458 || 2165 GR || 18 || 19 || 1 HU || 309 || 906 || 597 IE || 0 || 0 || 0 IS || 2 || 37 || 35 IT || 166 || 297 || 131 LI || 0 || 0 || 0 LT || 6 || 82 || 76 LU || 36 || 213 || 177 LV || 3 || 26 || 23 MT || 0 || 10 || 10 NL || 2891 || 6633 || 3742 NO || 1410 || 3792 || 2382 PL || 532 || 1838 || 1306 PT || 2 || 44 || 42 RO || 152 || 197 || 45 SE || 73 || 192 || 119 SI || 36 || 195 || 159 SK || 47 || 183 || 136 UK || 770 || 1514 || 744 || || || Total || 16519 || 48565 || 32046 Table 8: Rejected transactions,
percentage in 2012 Table 9: Average time between the
date of taking the fingerprints and their sending to the EURODAC Central Unit,
in 2012
Table 10: Category 1 against Category 1 hit in wrong sense, in 2012 Table 11: Distribution of CAT1/CAT2
hits missed because a delay when sending the CAT2, in 2012 Table 12: Distribution of hits
against blocked cases (art. 12 of the EC Regulation 2725/2000), in 2012 Table 13: Count of category 9
"special searches" per Member State, in 2012 [1] OJ
L 316, 15.12.2000, p.1. [2] Article
24(1) EURODAC Regulation. [3] COM(2012) 254 final. [4] COM(2008) 825 final. [5] COM(2009) 342 final and COM(2009)
344 final. [6] COM(2010) 555 final. [7] The EURODAC Regulation provides for the
implementation of a Central Unit managed by the European Commission containing
an Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) which shall receive data
and transmit 'hit – no hit' replies to the national Units (National Access
Points) in each Member State. The EURODAC Regulation and its Implementing Rules
identify the responsibilities for the collection, transmission and comparison
of the fingerprint data, the means through which the transmission can take
place, the statistical tasks of the Central Unit and the standards that are
used for the data transmission. [8] Regulation (EU) No 1077/2011 of the European Parliament
and of the Council of 25 October 2011 establishing a European Agency for the
operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom,
security and justice, OJ 1.11.2011, L286 p.1 [9] S-TESTA
(secured Trans-European Services for Telematics between Administrations)
network provides a generic infrastructure to serve the business needs and
information exchange requirements between European and National administrations. [10] ISA (Interoperability Solution for European Public Administrations)
is the new programme to improve electronic cooperation among public
administrations in EU Member States. It is the follow-on of the previous
programme IDA II (Interchange of Data between Administrations) and IDABC
(Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public
Administrations, Businesses and Citizens). [11] Table 2 of the Annex details the successful
transactions per Member State, with a breakdown by category, between 1 January
2012 and 31 December 2012. [12] 'Each Member State shall, in accordance with the
safeguards laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights and in the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, promptly take the
fingerprints of all fingers of every alien of at least 14 years of age who is
apprehended by the competent control authorities in connection with the
irregular crossing by land, sea or air of the border of that Member State
having come from a third country and who is not turned back.' [13] OJ L 348 of 24.12.2008. [14] Article 11 '(…) As a general rule
there are grounds for checking whether the alien has previously lodged an
application for asylum in another Member State where: (a) the alien declares
that he/she has lodged an application for asylum but without indicating the
Member State in which he/she made the application; (b) the alien does not
request asylum but objects to being returned to his/her country of origin by
claiming that he/she would be in danger, or (c) the alien otherwise seeks to
prevent his/her removal by refusing to cooperate in establishing his/her
identity, in particular by showing no, or false, identity papers.' [15] The statistics concerning local hits shown in
the tables may not necessarily correspond to the hit replies transmitted by the
Central Unit and recorded by the Member States. The reason for this is that
Member States do not always use the option, provided by Art. 4(4), which
requests the Central Unit to search against their own data already stored in
the Central database. However, even when Member States do not make use of this
option, the Central Unit must, for technical reasons, always perform a
comparison against all data (national and foreign) stored in the Central Unit.
In these concrete cases, even if there is a match against national data, the
Central Unit will simply reply 'no hit' because the Member State did not ask
for the comparison of the data submitted against its own data. [16] OJ L 326 of 13.12.2005. [17] In the scenario of the so-called 'wrong hit', a
third-country national lodges an asylum application in a Member State
(A), whose authorities take his/her fingerprints. While those fingerprints are
still waiting to be transmitted to the Central Unit (category 1 transaction),
the same person could already present him/herself in another Member State (B)
and ask again for asylum. If this Member State B sends the fingerprints
first, the fingerprints sent by the Member State A would be registered in the
Central database later then the fingerprints sent by Member State B and would
thus result in a hit from the data sent by Member State B against the data sent
by the Member State A. Member State B would thus be determined as being
responsible instead of the Member State A where an asylum application had been
lodged first. [18] In the scenario of the so-called 'missed hit', a
third-country national is apprehended in connection with an irregular border
crossing and his/her fingerprints are taken by the authorities of the
Member State (A) he/she entered. While those fingerprints are still waiting to
be transmitted to the Central Unit (category 2 transaction), the same person
could already present him/herself in another Member State (B) and lodge an asylum
application. At that occasion, his/her fingerprints are taken by the
authorities of Member State (B). If this Member State (B) sends the
fingerprints (category 1 transaction) first, the Central Unit would register a
category 1 transaction first, and Member State (B) would handle the application
instead of Member State A. Indeed, when a category 2 transaction arrives later
on, a hit will be missed because category 2 data are not searchable. [19] A transaction may be rejected due to a data validation
issue, fingerprint errors or insufficient quality (see also section 2.1. ibid).